Barista Girl
by brokenhearted.insomniac
Summary: I wasn't sure that I was going to finish this, but it's gotten a lot of hits & the messages I've gotten seem to be positive, so welcome to me making the best of my insomnia. R&R if you want. Reid/OC. Lots of drama  & some "T" scenes  coming up!
1. Chapter 1

It was eight in the morning and the coffeehouse was just starting it's midmorning rush. There was a long line, but Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan couldn't take one more morning of the black bile that the FBI called coffee. A drink from his favorite coffeehouse was exactly what he needed to make it through another long day of paperwork and bureaucratic politics and it was most definitely worth the small wait. When the tall, lanky man in line in front of him finally finished ordering and Derek was about to make his way to the register his phone buzzed with a text message from the communications liaison for the BAU, the special team of FBI agents Derek worked for.

_Need you at the office ASAP.  
We have a new case. Hope you  
didn't eat yet. This one isn't  
pretty.  
-JJ_

Derek sighed and moved to the counter. When he looked up and saw the cute new barista waiting patiently for his order he turned on his most charming smile instinctively. Her smile was friendly and her curves were tempting. She had icy blue eyes that sparkled in the florescent lighting. Her chuckle was light hearted and reminded him that he hadn't bothered ordering yet. She took the pen from the register and used it to hold her black hair with the purple tips in a knot on the nape of her neck. "You feel like ordering or are you planning on just smiling at me all day?" she asked him playfully, her southern accent catching him off-guard. It wasn't every day that a southern girl found her way to the Virginia/DC area.

"Sorry Sweetheart," he apologized smoothly. "I came in here thinking I wanted a latte, but now I'm thinking I might want your number instead." He knew it was a corny line, but it wasn't as if the line hadn't worked in the past, even if it was usually in a bar full of drunk FBI cadets looking to make a name for themselves in the bureau.

"One latte, coming up," she told him, wrinkling her nose in an attempt not to laugh at his pick-up attempt. "Small or large?"

"Large, I guess," he sighed. He hadn't been shot down so quickly in years. She hadn't even checked him out. He looked at her ring finger to make sure she wasn't married. There wasn't a ring there. So why wasn't she interested at all? He worked hard on his physique and most girls—married or not—at least admired it for a second or two. This girl wouldn't even look at him.

Derek waited at the other end of the counter for his drink to be made and took it with him to the office. Once inside, he noticed the rest of the BAU team gathered in the conference room at the end of the hall. He joined them and tried to pay attention to the case that JJ was presenting. Girls were disappearing in Florida and turning up four days later wearing clown costumes and lying face-down in ditches on the side of I-4. People were getting crazier and crazier every day, especially people in Florida.

The entire team focused their attention on a receptionist who had stuck her head in the doorway of the room. "Agent Reid," she asked.

"Yeah, that's me," Derek's teammate Spencer said holding up a long, thin finger to distinguish himself from the other agents in the room.

"You have a visitor," the girl told him before exiting as quickly as she'd entered.

Spencer stood up and walked to the hallway to greet his visitor. The rest of the team watched intently, wondering who would be there to see the youngest agent. His family lived in Nevada, and he hadn't ever mentioned having too many friends outside of the bureau, especially any who would need to speak to him while he was at work.

It was hard to see who had come to see him, but JJ, who was standing at the end of the conference table and therefore had a better vantage point than the rest of the team, leaned over to her colleagues and whispered, "It's a girl. And he's giving her his keys. And...oh my God! He's kissing her goodbye!" Her eyebrows were raised in astonishment. No one had ever heard Spencer mention a girlfriend. He certainly wasn't the ladies' man his best friend Derek was. Spencer was still blushing when he came back to the room and took his seat.

"So, what was that all about Casanova?" Penelope Garcia, the team's quirky technical analyst teased him. His blush deepened.

"Nothing," he played it off. "My friend's just borrowing my car while we're out of town."

The team finished the briefing and their leader, Aaron Hotchner, told them to be ready to go in twenty minutes. Derek, Spencer, and one of their teammates, David Rossi, were riding together to the airport hanger where the team's private jet was housed. In the car, they couldn't help but question Spencer about his visitor.

"Who was your friend this morning, kid?" Derek asked him, chuckling. "And why is she borrowing your car?"

"She's just this girl I met a while back," he answered generically. He looked out the window distractedly.

"How long ago?" Rossi wanted to know. It was obvious that the girl was more than "just some girl" and he wanted to know how long Spencer had been hiding this secret romance from his friends.

Spencer blushed again, embarrassed. "Six months," he answered finally.

"You might as well go ahead and tell us the whole story, kid," Derek chided. "We're profilers. You know we'll get the info out of you eventually."

Spencer sighed. He debated for a minute whether or not to tell his friends about Kris and finally decided that he wanted to keep his relationship private for a while longer. Kris was like his own secret treasure. He wasn't ready to share her yet. "What story?" he shrugged. "Nothing to tell. She's a friend that I met a few months ago. Her car is in the shop, so I've been giving her a ride to and from work the last few days. Since we'll be out of town and I can't drive her, she's borrowing my car until we get back."

David and Derek didn't buy the story, but they could tell Spencer didn't want to talk about the girl, so they let the subject drop and started talking about the case they were working on.

XXX

The case was becoming stranger and stranger the more the team learned about the unsub. As horrible as it seemed, Spencer could tell that it would take a new body before they could get any information that would lead them to the detailed profile they needed to catch the killer. When Aaron suggested the team go back to the hotel and get some rest at two that morning, Spencer was thankful for the break.

As soon as he reached his room and had the door locked, he pulled his phone from his pocket and climbed onto the bed. She answered on the second ring. "Hey Baby," she greeted him, sleep still evident in her voice. "Are you back already?"

"No, no. We're still in Florida. I just wanted to talk to you. Sorry if I woke you up," Spencer apologized.

"I'm glad you did. I was dreaming about you, but I don't think my dreams were doing you justice. Hearing your voice is so much better."

"I miss you," Spencer admitted. He wasn't one of those boys who hid his feelings in fear of sounding needy. He did need Kris. She made him feel...normal. Being the twelve-year-old senior in high school, normal was a feeling Spencer had never experienced until six months earlier.

"You'll be home soon. And I'll be there waiting when you land," Kris reminded him.

"You promised you'd tell me why you don't want to stay at your apartment if I called you tonight," Spencer blurted out. He'd been worried about it all day. It wasn't unusual for Kris to stay at his apartment anymore, but she'd never stayed there while he was away on business before. She really was using his car while hers was in the shop, just as he'd told his teammates earlier that morning, but he hadn't expected her to come to the BAU office and ask for the key to his apartment.

Kris sighed. "I just don't feel like being there right now," she whispered.

"I don't believe you." Kris was always very honest with Spencer. He couldn't imagine any reason she would lie to him about something so trivial, but he could tell in her voice that there was something she wasn't telling him.

"I don't know, Stat," she told him sincerely. Stat was the nickname she'd given him, short for Statistic. When she'd first met Spencer, she hadn't known his name and had just called him "statistic boy" when she and her co-workers spoke of him. He was always rattling off statistics when he tried to talk to her and she'd thought it was cute. "Honest. It's just this weird feeling."

"What kind of feeling?"

"Like someone's watching me." She was whispering again, embarrassed to be telling him something that made her feel so crazy. "I know I sound like some paranoid crazy person, but I just have this weird feeling like someone's been watching me the last few days. It's worse when I'm home. I didn't want to be there alone for however long you're away."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Spencer choked out. Parts of her story reminded him of the crazy ramblings of his paranoid schizophrenic mother but there was so much sincerity in her voice that he couldn't help but believe her. His mother had never been completely in her right mind and he could tell when she was having one of her paranoid episodes. With Kris, the only uncertainty in her voice was her questioning her own sanity for believing someone was watching her without her knowledge. "How long has this been going on?"

"A few days. Not long. And I was afraid...I don't know...that you'd think I was nuts or something. Maybe I am."

"You're not. Trust me," Spencer assured her. "Well, not for this anyway," he added with a small chuckle.

"I love you."

"Tell me about the last few days. Don't leave anything out," he responded. His trust in her story was his own form of telling her he loved her, though he'd said the words a hundred times already.

"It started on my way to work the other day. It was the day after my car died, when I'd decided to walk because it was so pretty out. When I left your apartment, I was fine. It wasn't until about a block away from the shop that I got this chill down my spine. I looked around, but I was the only one on the street. Even that park on the corner of 16th Street was empty. But I could have sworn someone was watching me. The next day I was at the shop when I felt it again. There were at least fifteen customers there, plus about four of us working. I couldn't see anyone out of the ordinary. Since then, it feels like someone's there most of the day. No one stands out from the crowd. And when I walk around my apartment, I can still feel it. Especially when I'm there."

"Do you have enough clothes at my place to last a few days, just in case?" Spencer wanted to know.

"Yes."

"Then don't go back to your apartment until I get home. I'm probably being overly-cautious, but I have a small handgun in the top of my closet, in a green shoe box. I think you should put it in your purse while I'm here. And don't walk to work; take my car." Spencer was worried. He knew that something must be spooking Kris. He would be sure to find out what as soon as he got back to Virginia. "I'll be home in a few days."

"How's your case going?" she asked, glad to take the focus of their conversation off of her for once.

"Not great. It's disturbing. And we don't have enough evidence for a profile yet," he told her. He wouldn't mention the need for another body, another victim. Kris was extremely sensitive about things like that. Especially with her current worries, he didn't want to bring up upsetting topics.

With the serious conversation out of the way, Spencer and Kris caught one another up on current topics in their lives. Spencer hung up just over an hour later when Kris had fallen asleep.

XXX

The next morning brought with it a new victim in the BAU case. It provided the missing elements for the profile and the unsub confessed under Emily Prentiss' interrogation early in the evening. Spencer was glad to be going home earlier than expected. He was anxious to look into whatever was scaring his girlfriend. He had a stack of paperwork to finish before he could leave the office, which would give Kris just enough time to pick him up after her shift at work that night.

The team was playful as they made their way up to their offices on the sixth floor of the building. Everyone was excited that the case had been solved so quickly. Penelope met them at the entrance to the bull pen area and asked to talk to Spencer alone for a second.

"What is it, Garcia?" he asked. She looked worried which was unusual for the happy, free spirited woman.

"Reid, your, um, friend—the one from the briefing yesterday—came by. She was crying and saying someone had sent her a note and she was freaked out and didn't want to go home. I had just heard from JJ that you were on your way back, so I told her she could wait for you here. She's in the conference room. She seemed really freaked out. I tried to convince her to talk to one of the other agents or the police or someone, but she said she wanted to talk to you about it first. I did finally talk her into letting me put the note in an evidence bag, just in case," Penelope rambled.

"Kris is here?" Spencer immediately looked in the direction of the conference room, but the door was shut. "Thanks Garcia," he mumbled as he headed to the small room.

Kris was sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room, curled up in a ball. It was obvious she'd been crying; her eyes were puffy and red and there were mascara stains running down her face. Spencer sat next to her and she threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him so hard that he had to pry her loose so that he could breathe again. She had started crying again, silent sobs that stole her breath and broke his heart.

"What happened, Kris?" he asked her, frantic to find answers. "Is this about the...feeling? The person you felt watching you?"

Kris nodded into Spencer's chest. "He was there, I'm sure of it."

"Who?"

"I don't know." Kris pointed at the table in the center of the room where Spencer could see the evidence bag containing the note Penelope had mentioned. "But that was sitting in the front seat of your car when I opened the door to go to work tonight. Whoever left it was in the car." 


	2. Chapter 2

Spencer wanted to reach over and read the letter—needed to read it—but more importantly he needed to console his girlfriend who was crying silent sobs in his arms. He wasn't used to being a boyfriend and he was afraid that he still wasn't any good at it. Lulling Kris to calmness was completely new territory; Spencer had never even seen her eyes water, much less seen her cry. "I don't know what to do right now," he admitted. Kris was aware of his treading on un-solid ground with the boyfriend duties and he'd always been able to tell her when he was unsure of himself. He wasn't sure if asking was the right move to make when she was still curled into a ball and crying into his chest—wasn't sure it was what a boyfriend should do—but they weren't exactly a conventional couple and he didn't know how else to handle the situation.

Kris realized quickly what was happening. "You should read the letter," she told him, trying to suppress her sobs. "I'm okay. I'd actually prefer you be the brilliant FBI agent who's going to figure out what's happening rather than be my boyfriend right now."

Spencer knew Kris meant what she'd said, but he still had to untangle her arms from around his neck. When he got up, Kris wrapped her arms around her knees, which were already pulled to her chest, and rested her chin on them. It was a classic self-protective pose. She was terrified. He'd seen her jumpy from scary movies and he'd seen her tense from unsavory people loitering on the street. He'd never seen her terrified like this.

_I can still see you. You'll see me soon._

The note was typed. There was no greeting. No salutation. It was impersonal. Whoever wrote it wanted to distance himself from the crime. The threat was meant to invoke fear. It was evident he knew Kris was aware of him, but hadn't seen him yet...

"Spencer?" Kris' voice pulled him from his thoughts. He'd been dissecting the note and hadn't noticed that she had gotten up and was standing with her hand on his shoulder by the table. She'd stopped crying and wiped away the evidence of the tears. "Is this..." She didn't finish the whispered question, but her hand absentmindedly reached to her neck and started twisting the child-sized ring that hung from her necklace as a charm.

Spencer knew by the gesture who she meant. "Maybe. We certainly can't rule it out as a possibility."

"But it might be something else? Something completely unrelated?" She sounded hopeful. Kris didn't like to bring up her past. Spencer knew that, which is why he always found it strange that she always wore the small ring. It had been a childhood gift from her father; the person she most wanted to forget.

"I think, given your history, it's the best place to start." He hated to upset her, but he wanted to be honest with her.

Someone in the doorway cleared his throat and got Spencer's and Kris' attention. David and Emily both stood there. David spoke first. "We heard that you might need our help with something."

"Garcia?" Spencer assumed.

"Who else?" Emily confirmed. "What's going on?"

"A personal case," Spencer answered, not sure whether he should bring them in on the case. Kris was a private person and he didn't think she would want his friends to know too much about her. But he knew it was his best chance at protecting her.

"I'll get the rest of the team," David suggested.

"No need," they heard Derek call from a few feet away. "Baby Girl already found us." JJ, Penelope, and Aaron were all with him. "What's this about? And what's the coffee chick doing here?"

"I prefer something slightly more dignified. Let's go with...Barista Girl," she shot back at him.

"Fair enough, Barista Girl," Derek teased. Everyone found seats at the table. Kris sat between Spencer and Garcia. Derek was across from her.

"Guys, I want you to meet Kris, my, uh, my girlfriend," Spencer introduced nervously. He could see the look on Derek's face.

"Girlfriend?" Derek repeated. He didn't understand how he could have not known Spencer had a girlfriend. Spencer always told him stuff like that.

"Why are we here?" Aaron asked, getting to business. "I assume it's not for socializing."

"I think someone is stalking me," Kris blurted out.

"What makes you think that?" Emily wanted to know.

Kris was hesitant. She knew Spencer trusted his colleagues with his life, but she didn't know them. She already felt crazy because of the "feelings" she'd been having. She didn't want them to think that as well. But she knew it was only going to get worse if they looked into this; they would have to delve deep into her personal life—her past—to figure out who was terrorizing her. "I've had a feeling the last few days, like someone's been watching me. But when I look around, no one's even looking at me. Most of the time, I'm completely alone. Then tonight, I was getting in the car to go to work when I saw a note in the driver's seat. I ran back inside, called a cab, and came here," she recalled.

"Do you have the note?" Aaron asked. Spencer handed it to him. "This is impersonal, distant. It doesn't look like a classic stalker note." It was exactly what Spencer had been thinking earlier. "JJ, can you get the paperwork sorted out? I want this to be official."

"Not a problem, Hotch. I can have it ready by morning," JJ assured him.

"Kris, this means we'll be digging into our entire life. We can turn this over to the local police or another FBI team if you'd be more comfortable with that," Aaron offered.

"No. It's okay. I'd rather have y'all working on it," Kris agreed. "Spencer trusts y'all, so I do too."

"Okay. We'll get some rest tonight and start on this first thing in the morning," Aaron decreed. "Do you have somewhere safe you can stay tonight?"

Kris looked to Spencer. His team didn't seem to know about her. She didn't want to give away any details—like the fact that she stayed with him most nights lately—about their relationship that he wasn't comfortable with.

"She's staying with me," he confirmed for her. He sounded more confident than he felt, she was sure of it.

"We'll meet back here first thing tomorrow." Aaron stood up and left to go back to his office and JJ followed closely behind him to start the paperwork.

Everyone was silent. There was a tension in the air that centered between Derek and Spencer. Kris could only guess it had something to do with the fact that Spencer hadn't mentioned her to his best friend.

Finally, Derek smiled and broke the silence with a small laugh. "Who's up for drinks?" Everyone stared at him like he was nuts, except for Spencer, who gave him a small smile. "What? Nothing is going to happen to her surrounded by a team of FBI agents in a bar frequented by FBI agents and cadets. And I want to get to know Barista Girl here."

XXX

It was a Tuesday night, so the group had their pick of tables at the bar across the street from their office. A six person booth sat empty at the back and they pulled a small table next to it for added space. Spencer and Kris claimed one of the booths and Emily joined them. Across from them, Penelope sat sandwiched between Derek and her boyfriend, Kevin. David took a chair at the head of the table. Aaron and JJ had each claimed to have a mountain of paperwork to catch up on, but promised to join the group as soon as they finished. Everyone was curious about the girl who'd stolen Spencer's heart. They'd never known Spencer to have a girlfriend before.

"How did things work out with your case in Florida?" Kris asked as soon as they sat down, hoping to keep the conversation away from her and Spencer for as long as possible.

Her efforts were useless. "Oh no," Emily exclaimed. "We need to know about this." She pointed back and forth between Spencer and Kris. "When did it start and how did you meet?"

"I used to work at a bookstore and Spencer used to shop there a lot," Kris explained quickly, giving as few details as she could.

"How long have you two been...you two?" Penelope added with a comical and suggestive raise of her eyebrows.

"Five months, two weeks, and six days," Spencer recalled hesitantly.

Everyone laughed at Spencer's ability to remember the exact number of days. Emily and Penelope—both excited for Spencer to have finally found someone to make him happy—gaped at one another and both mouthed "five months!" at the same time.

"Where are you from originally, Kris?" Derek asked. He'd noticed her southern accent that morning at the coffee shop.

"Georgia," she answered reluctantly. She knew they would all find out her past soon enough, but she still wasn't used to talking about it. Besides, this was the first time she was meeting Spencer's friends and she wanted at least one night of just hanging out like normal friends, without the knowledge of her past hanging over everyone's heads.

"You're a long way from home," David noted. "How did you wind up in Virginia?"

"I grew up in a small town. I wanted to get away and see the world. I thought that DC would be a _cultured_ place to start," she said with a smile.

With that, the interrogation seemed to be over, though Kris could tell that Derek, Emily, and David were all profiling her throughout night. The group seemed to accept her easily, which was a relief to Spencer, and they joked and discussed the pop culture topics, teasing one another fondly and laughing often.

XXX

Derek offered to give Kris and Spencer a ride back to Spencer's apartment, since Kris had taken a cab to their office and left Spencer's car in the parking garage. It was dark in the street in front of the building. It gave Kris an eerie feeling. Derek put the car in park and walked around towards Spencer's door. "Why don't you stay in the car for a minute?" Spencer requested to Kris. She nodded and Spencer got out to talk to Derek in hushed whispers.

"The car she found the note in earlier, it was yours?" Derek asked. Spencer nodded in confirmation. "Maybe I should crash on your couch or something. Whoever this is obviously knows she was using your car and staying at your apartment last night. If they're gaining enough confidence to contact her, they may get the courage to make a move."

"He waited until the first night I was out of town to leave the note," Spencer argued. "It tells me that he's been watching my habits as well as hers to know something like that, but it also says he's afraid of me. She stayed at her apartment by herself two nights ago. He waited until I was totally out of the picture. I think as long as I don't leave her alone, she'll be okay."

"At least let me go with you to check it out before I leave," Derek pushed. He'd always felt protective of Spencer, like a big brother.

"We'll be fine, Morgan, really," Spencer promised. "But if it'll make you feel better, stay here and I'll text you when we get up there to let you know everything is okay." It felt like something a teenager would say to placate his parents—not Spencer's parents, which made him feel awkward saying it, but Derek seemed genuinely worried.

The comment made Derek realize just how much he was over-reacting. Sometimes he forgot that Spencer had practically raised himself and he had a good head on his shoulders. "Nah, kid. But you call me if there's any trouble," he conceded.

"Deal." There was silence while Spencer debated whether to ask Derek what he'd been wanting to ask all night. "Are you mad? That I didn't tell you about Kris, I mean?"

Derek also took a minute to think about his answer. "No, I'm not mad. I was surprised. But she's a sweet girl and she seems to make you happy. That's what matters. Besides, we're all allowed to keep a secret or two."

"She makes me feel surprisingly...normal," Spencer blurted out. "I've never felt normal before. Is that what most relationships are like?"

Derek couldn't help but laugh a little. "Yeah. Something like that."

Spencer motioned for Kris to join them. She climbed out of the backseat and took Spencer's hand. Spencer blushed. "It was great to finally meet you, Derek," Kris told him, offering him her free hand.

"Come on, Barista Girl. We can do better than that." Derek pulled Kris to him in a hug and placed a small kiss on her cheek. "Night you two."

"Is everything okay?" Kris asked as she and Spencer made their way inside.

"Yeah, I think so." Spencer had worried all night about Derek's reaction to Kris. He was relieved Derek seemed to approve of her.

Upstairs, Spencer noticed a light on under the door to his apartment. "Did you leave that on?" he asked Kris.

"I don't know. Maybe? I was freaked out and ran to the cab as quick as I could," she recalled. She tried to remember if she'd left it on, but she honestly couldn't decide.

Spencer pulled his gun from it's holster and motioned for Kris not to speak. Kris wouldn't have been able to make a sound if she'd wanted to. She was paralyzed. Spencer opened the door and slowly made his way inside. Kris stood frozen where she was but Spencer pulled her inside with him; he wasn't leaving her alone in the hallway, an easy target for someone to grab.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Only one light was on, in the living room. Spencer checked in the bedroom, the closet, the shower, and anywhere else someone might be able to hide. He finally let go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, lowered his gun, and resigned himself to the fact that in her panic, Kris must have left the light on.

"I'm getting some water," Kris announced. "Do you want anything?"

"No. I'm going to get a shower."

Kris walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and fell onto the sofa to relax and watch the news. When she reached for the remote, her hand hit a piece of paper that floated to the floor. When she picked it back up she screamed and dropped it as if it had bitten her.

Another note.

_you shouldn't have done that_

Spencer was there in seconds, his gun drawn and his shirt missing. "What is it?" he asked, frantic. He looked around, but all he saw was Kris balled up on the couch with a few tears.

"It's another note," she whispered. 


	3. Chapter 3

Spencer sat next to Kris. He wanted to comfort her, but that was the part of being a boyfriend he was afraid he was the worst at. Kris wasn't the kind of girl you could hug to make everything better. Kris wanted honestly. And honestly, Spencer couldn't promise that this would all be okay. If her family was involved like he was afraid they were, then a simple stalking case could become something bigger than he could protect her from. He reached out to touch her knee—more a sign of support, to show her he was there for her, than to try to comfort her—but she pulled away and then stood up to walk across the room so that she could stare out the window at the metropolitan sprawling below her.

Spencer couldn't help but to think that if he were a normal boyfriend, he would have tried to break the tense silence that hung between them with a useless question like "are you okay?" or maybe "how can I help?" But he already knew those answers, so instead he started spouting facts.

"He still wants to distance himself. For a personal crime, that's highly unlikely. He's getting bolder. Leaving a note in a car was aggressive, but not too difficult. The garage was probably empty during the day while the other residents were at work. But this was harder. It had to have been left while you were at the office or while we were at the bar. It would have been during the prime hours for my neighbors to be coming home from work and dinner. Someone would have been likely to have seen something. There's also the added security measures that would have made it more challenging. He had to look familiar or at least blend in well..."

Spencer's string of rambling trailed off into nothing when Kris' fists balled up and she kicked the wall. She screamed but it wasn't the fearful scream she'd let out a few minutes earlier when she'd found the latest note. It was angry, full of frustration.

Spencer stood up like he was going to walk over to Kris, but he stayed where he was. He wasn't sure what good it would do to try and reach out to her until she calmed down. He'd known for months that Kris' temper could flare up at any moment. Just like he sometimes feared he would inherit his mother's schizophrenia, it was possible for Kris to take after her father. She had told Spencer that her father was known to suffer from fits of rage and that he would often lash out at people for no reason. She had claimed it was a side effect of his job, but it didn't take a profiler, like Spencer, long to realize she was describing bipolar disorder. Spencer diagnosed mental disorders in psychopaths on a regular basis, but seeing it in someone he cared about brought up deep-rooted issues with having his mother committed to a mental institution when he was eighteen.

"I know you're scared," he said as soft and calm as he could manage. "It's okay. I'm scared too."

"No," Kris argued. "I'm not scared. I'm mad." At least she sounded calmer. "This creep is toying with me. I just want it to stop. If this is my dad, he's gone too far this time. If it's someone looking to hurt my dad, they should realize that tormenting me won't do any good."

"I should call Morgan. If this person got in once, I don't want to take any chances that he could do it again. Having someone else here could only help at this point," Spencer said, mostly to himself. He wasn't sure how to respond to Kris. She'd never acted like that before. She'd never openly confronted her past the way she just had, admitting her past could actually have caught up with her.

Kris didn't respond either. She just walked onto the balcony connected to the living room and plopped down into one of the chairs. Spencer went back to his bedroom to grab his shirt off the counter in the bathroom where he'd thrown it when he'd heard Kris screaming and his cell phone from the nightstand where he'd been charging it. He sat on the bed and called Derek. Derek agreed to come over and Spencer stayed where he was, going over the details of the case in his mind, until he heard the knock at the door.

Kris was opening the door when Spencer reached the hallway. As soon as she saw Spencer she went back to the balcony to give him some privacy to talk to Derek. She never even said a word. Derek noticed that something had happened between the couple but didn't bring it up as he and Spencer took seats on opposite ends of the sofa.

"I don't know how to help her right now," Spencer admitted. He knew what Derek had been thinking and decided to offer up the information before he had to ask. "She's hurting. She doesn't want to think that her family is involved in this, but she can't exactly ignore the fact that it's the obvious answer."

"Her family?" Derek asked. "Didn't she say that her family is still in Georgia?"

"They are, as far as she knows. But her father has a number of people he could easily send to do this if he wanted. He's in a position of power and it's not a stretch to think that someone might be trying to use her to get to him. Either way, this is going to destroy her."

"She isn't close to her family?"

"I haven't spoken to them in four years," Kris answered from the doorway to the balcony. "And I've been preparing for something like this since I left. I won't let this destroy me." She took her bottle of water from the coffee table, careful not to look directly at the note—which both Derek and Spencer noticed—and went to sit by Spencer. She took his hand, though she was facing Derek; it was a silent apology for her outburst earlier.

"You left home four years ago? But you've only been here for a few months. Where did you go in the mean time?" Derek asked her. He needed to get to know Kris quickly if he was going to help.

"I started out trying to hide from my family, so I'd only stay in one place for about six months. I started off in Tennessee. From there I moved to Kentucky and Texas. I finally realized that no matter where I went, my family could find me if they wanted. Since they hadn't tried to contact me—except for once when my sister tried to send me a letter letting me know my uncle had passed away—I decided to try and start over with a real life. I moved to Florida and intended to stay there permanently. I got a job, started back to school, and even bought a house. I was there for a year and a half before I realized my new neighbors were old business associates of my dad's. I put my house up for sale and got an apartment in New York for three months before I moved here. I've been here for seven months."

"What sort of business is your dad in?" Derek wanted to know.

"I'm not really sure. He claims to own a chain of jewelry stores. But he's most definitely doing something illegal. The stores are just a cover. He has body guards around all the time and has more money than anyone I've ever met in retail. There's a warehouse that I've never seen jewelry in, but everyone carries guns. We never talked about it. My dad's job was a taboo subject in our house," Kris explained.

"Organized crime?" Derek summarized.

"Yeah. Some kind of crime. Like I said, we didn't ask questions."

"What about your mom?"

"Her mom left when Kris was a baby," Spencer informed him. He knew that Kris' mom was a sensitive subject still. "Her older brother and sister helped raise her while her dad was at work."

"And where are they? Your siblings?"

"My brother is working in the family business. I don't know how far up the chain he is. We were never close. My sister still lives at home and takes care of the housework. She has a daughter who's five now. My dad supports them both."

"Do you think your dad could be behind this? He tried to keep tabs on you once before," Derek wondered.

"The guys in Florida weren't working for my dad. I hadn't seen them since I was fifteen because they'd had some sort of falling out with my dad. I wasn't sure what had happened. One day they were like uncles to me and the next, my dad told us to call him if we ever saw them again. I assumed that meant they had started working for one of my dad's competitors," Kris explained. "As far as him being behind this, I don't know. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like this to someone else. But my dad has known everywhere I've lived since the day I moved away from home. He never once tried to bring me home or even get in touch with me. My sister is the only one that tried to talk to me at all. As far as I can tell, my dad pretty much disowned me when I left. I can't figure out why he would try to contact me now. He definitely wouldn't do it like this."

"Then the most likely answer is that someone—probably the same someone who wanted to keep an eye on you in Florida—is trying to use you as leverage to get to your dad," Derek concluded. "We should have Garcia look into cases from the organized crime division and see what she can dig up on your dad. You should understand that you may learn things about him that you didn't want to know."

"It's okay. It's time to end this." Kris looked sad, but resigned. She also looked tired.

"You should go get some sleep," Spencer suggested. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day." He knew she was emotionally exhausted already, but he also knew that it would probably only get worse after his team looked into her father's business ventures.

Spencer wasn't known to sleep a lot, so Kris was used to going to bed before him. She bid the boys goodnight and went to the bedroom to try and sleep. Spencer stayed with Derek so that they could talk more and try to find some answers or at least some leads. Derek looked like he wanted to ask something, but that he was afraid. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore. "Listen, Reid, how well do you really know this girl?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the daughter of a known crime boss just happens to move to DC—a town where she doesn't know anyone and has no ties—and starts dating an FBI agent. It seems a little convenient is all."

"She isn't like that," Spencer defended her. "Kris left everything she ever knew—she moved away from home on her 18th birthday—so that she could get away from her dad's lifestyle."

"Reid, if we look into this, you need to be prepared to find things about Kris that you don't want to know. It's not too late for us to hand this over to another team." Derek worried that Spencer's need to always believe the best in people—especially the people he cared about—would hurt him in the end.

"I'll be okay. Kris and I are honest with each other. I trust her."

"How did you two even meet?" Derek wanted to know.

"She used to work at my favorite book store..."

_"Hey Maggie!" the girl greeted the bookstore owner with a smile._

"Checks are on the desk in back," Maggie told her, guessing the reason for the girl's visit without looking up from the newspaper she was reading.

The girl disappeared into the back for a minute and returned still zipping her giant bag closed. She headed to a counter where another, younger girl who also worked at the shop was drinking a cup of coffee and watching one of the patrons who sat at a table flipping pages in a book too quickly to be reading.

"He's here, again_," the younger girl whispered to her friend. "What's he doing?"_

"The same thing he does everyday," the girl said with a shrug.

"How old do you think he is?" the first girl asked.

"Probably close to my age," the older girl guessed. "You still day dreaming about him?" The younger girl didn't answer, but the deep blush that crept over her face was a good indication that her friend had been right.

The girl decided it was time to get some answers about the mysterious customer. He was there at least two or three days a week either flipping pages or writing some sort of letter and drinking coffee that had more sugar than coffee in it and no one seemed to know him. She took the open seat at his table and stared at him.

"You know, we won't kick you out if you want to actually read the books," she teased him.

"I am reading them," he informed her, setting the book on the table to look at her.

"No. You're flipping pages," she countered with a smile.

"I can read 20,000 words a minute," he explained factually. "I assure you, I am reading them." He picked his book back up and started reading again, assuming the girl would be leaving. She didn't.

"Do you read a lot of Shakespeare?" she asked him. She'd seen the cover of his book.

"Sometimes." He wasn't sure what the girl wanted from him. Girls didn't just sit at his table and start talking to him. He didn't know how to make small talk with people his age. There had to be an appropriate response, but he wasn't sure what it was, so he went with what he knew: facts. "Did you know that in Shakespearean times, women weren't allowed to be actors, so all of the female roles were portrayed by men?"

"No. I wasn't aware of that." She was still smiling. "I'm Kris."

"I'm Reid," he told her. "Well, actually, my name is Spencer. Most of my colleagues call me Reid. But you don't have to. You can just call me Spencer." He realized he was rambling so he tried to stop himself.

"What do you do, Spencer?" she asked him. He was still holding his book, but she took it and placed it on the table, resting her hands on top of it.

"What do I do for what?"  
_  
"For work?" she clarified._

"Oh. I'm a special agent for the BAU." He knew the confused expression on her face well. "It's a team for the FBI, the Behavior Analysis Unit." She still looked confused. "I'm a profiler. I study the psychological patterns of serial killers."

"Wow. Impressive." She was silent for a second, but quickly came up with something else to say. "My friend over there has a huge crush on you," Kris blurted out. "You don't have to worry about doing anything about it 'cause she's only sixteen and I'm guessing you're over eighteen, so making a move would be illegal, but if you flirted with her every once in a while, it would probably make her day. In case you wanted to know." With that, Kris stood up and walked to the door of the shop. She turned just before she left. "It was nice talking to you, Spencer." And then she was gone.

"...After that, she would come and talk to me every time I was in the store when she was working. After about a month she asked me why I hadn't asked her out yet and told me she thought I should take her to dinner that weekend. The weekend after that, she asked me to come over and watch a Star Trek marathon. We've been together ever since."

"Tell me about Kris," Derek suggested. He still wasn't sure what to think about her. Spencer seemed to trust her wholeheartedly, but Derek still had doubts.

"What about her?" There was a lot that the team would need to know about Kris over the next few days. They would need to ask about specifics or Spencer would be able to go on forever.

"She worked at the bookstore. Was that her first job when she came to town?"

"No. She got a job as a bartender first. It wasn't enough to pay her rent, so she had to work a few days a week at the bookstore to cover her bills. She was offered the assistant manager position at the café a few weeks ago and it payed enough for her to leave both of the other jobs."

"You have to be pretty outgoing to work as a bartender," Derek noted. Then he realized that someone would have to be pretty outgoing to keep a conversation going with Spencer as well.

"She is. It wasn't really out of character for her to randomly sit at my table and talk to me. If she's alone at a restaurant and sees someone else eating alone, she'll ask to join them. I've never met someone who can start a conversation with a total stranger so easily. She doesn't like people to feel alone."

"What about her relationship with her family?" She doesn't talk to her dad or siblings, but what about her aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents?"

"She ran into a distant cousin on her mom's side when she was living in Texas. They had dinner a few times, but she didn't keep in touch once she moved."

"Has she ever tried to contact her mom?"

"No. She has no idea how to. Otherwise, she probably would. She was always curious about her mom growing up. She knew her name but there weren't any pictures of her around the house and her family didn't ever talk about her."

"How close were her and her dad before she moved?"

"She was close to him when she was a kid. When she got older and started realizing something wasn't right about his job, they started growing distant. By the time she turned 18, no one was all that surprised to see her leaving. She still misses her family more than she wants to admit. She's been alone for a long time now. Every time she would move, she would remind herself it was only temporary, so she shouldn't try to get close to anyone. It's hard for her since she's so apt to making new friends. It was especially hard when she had to leave Florida. She'd allowed herself to start building a life again. She misses having a family to feel connected to."

Derek was starting to realize that Spencer did seem to know Kris better than he'd suspected. He still had doubts about the coincidental meeting of a mob boss's daughter and an FBI agent, especially since she didn't let herself get close to people, but he wanted to be wrong about her, for Spencer's sake.


	4. Chapter 4

Spencer finished answering a few more questions for Derek and then bid him good night to go join Kris. She was in bed, but she wasn't sleeping. She was watching a late night newscast and he could see in the glow of the TV that a few tears had escaped her eyes. He got ready for bed without either of them saying a word, and even got into the bed in silence. He knew that if she wanted to talk about what was bothering her (other than the obvious), she would bring it up.

After the current story on the news ended she turned to him. "The theater on Milton Avenue burned down earlier today," she told him without any emotion in her voice. She was trying to hide whatever she was feeling from him. He wasn't sure if it was fear or anger.

"I liked that theater," he said, equally emotionless. He was trying to get a better read on her emotions and he didn't want his own mood to influence her. She didn't say anything else so he tried again to get a reaction. "You and Gracie used to go there a lot." Gracie was the younger girl she'd worked with at the bookstore, the one who'd had a crush on Spencer. Kris had taken Gracie on as a little sister of sorts, but she hadn't mentioned the younger girl in a while. She stayed silent. "You haven't gone out with her in a while. Have you heard from her since school let out for summer?"

"Do you really want to talk about Gracie right now?" Kris asked him. There was uncertainty in her voice that Spencer couldn't understand.

"What else do you want to talk about?"

Kris was quiet for another minute, but she finally broke the awkward silence. "I hate him," she whispered. She usually took her necklace off when she slept, but Spencer noticed that her hand was at her neck again, holding the small ring.

"Who?"

"My dad."

"It's not like you to hate anyone," Spencer told her. He wasn't sure she even had the ability to hate. There were people she didn't like, but not many. Even in those few people, she tried her hardest to find something good in them. It was one of the things Spencer loved most about her.

"I hate who he's become," she amended. "He was my hero growing up. It was all a lie."

"We don't know for sure that he's behind this," Spencer reminded her.

"It doesn't matter. The fact that I could even think for one second that he _could_ be capable of something like this is proof that he isn't who I always believed he was. I'll never trust him again...if I ever see him again."

Spencer knew a thing or two about estranged paternal relationships. He hadn't spoken to his own father in several years. He probably never would again. He could understand Kris' disappointment in her father, but he hated seeing her hurting the way she was.

XXX

The next morning was quiet. A soft rain kept the birds at bay and Kris wasn't in the mood to do much talking. Spencer gave her as much privacy as he could. He worried about their relationship though. She'd been distancing herself little by little all week. He didn't want what was happening to cause her to push herself away enough to let her leave. She'd been running from her past for four years. She was good at running.

Derek could sense the tension between Kris and Spencer. He could tell that Spencer would have a hard time with the next few days. Nothing too serious had even happened yet and a rift was already forming between the couple. If something managed to rip them apart, Derek wasn't sure what effect it would have on his friend.

Spencer knew that Kris would be safe at work. Her stalker hadn't done anything to make Spencer think he was bold enough to make a move in a public place so close to the FBI building. He dropped her off on his way to meet with his colleagues, which meant he was the last one to arrive.

Penelope hustled into the conference room as soon as Spencer took his seat. She threw a stack of files onto the table and flung herself into a chair, pouting. "Please do not make me do any more research on this creep," she begged.

Spencer took one of the files. It was a police report on Dominic Jenkins, Kris' father. He'd been the lead suspect in an arson case, but he'd been able to dodge the charges.

"Did we get anything from organized crime?" Emily asked.

"No," Aaron sighed. "They have an ongoing case against Dominic and they can't risk blowing it over a stalking case. The detective I spoke to says that if everything goes according to plan, they could be taking down his entire organization in a matter of months. I have JJ working on getting more information from them, but in the mean time, we'll have to use what we can get from their computer system."

"Hotch, I don't know that I can take much more. This man is ruthless. He takes puppies, cats, fingers, and in one especially evil display of creepy power, he even went as far as to steal a baby and hold it hostage until the parents could pay him back the money he'd loaned them," Penelope recalled from what she'd read that morning.

"I talked to Kris last night. Based on what she told me, I don't think her dad is behind this," Derek explained. "She's lived in six states in four years. She'd had three jobs just since she moved here. She has an outgoing personality and has been a bartender in more than one state. Thousands of people must have come in contact with her in the last four years."

"This isn't a personal stalking so far. It still feels mob related to me," David argued.

"We should look into the two men that moved next door to Kris when she lived in Florida. They had been working with her dad for a number of years but when she was fifteen they stopped coming around. She didn't see them again until she moved to Florida. She thought they must have started working for one of her dad's competitors who wanted to keep tabs on Kris," Spencer added.

"Garcia, I want you to look into the neighbors in Florida. Start a time line on Kris from the the time she left home until now. Pay special attention to neighbors, room mates, and co-workers that might have been arrested for similar crimes," Aaron ordered. "Reid, take Morgan and Rossi to Kris' apartment. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Find any letters or pictures that could be from the stalker. He may have contacted her in the past and she wasn't even aware of it. Prentiss, you and I are going to talk to Kris."

XXX

Kris' heart stopped when she saw Aaron and Emily enter the coffee shop. Why hadn't Spencer come with them? Had something new happened? Was Spencer okay?

Aaron stayed close to the door, scanning the room, while Prentiss approached Kris at the counter. "Is Spencer okay?" Kris asked immediately, before Emily had a chance to speak. Her face was white and filled with concern.

Emily hadn't thought about what it would look like to Kris for them to visit her at work without Spencer. "Oh! Yes! Reid is fine," Emily assured her quickly. "He's at your apartment with Morgan and Rossi. Agent Hotchner and I just wanted to ask you some questions."

"Sure. We can talk in the back."

XXX

Derek and David waited in the parking lot of Kris' apartment building while Spencer went to the office to ask for a key. He returned quickly, which led his friends to believe he'd been at her place enough times for the office staff to recognize him. They would tease him relentlessly as soon as this ordeal was over. They followed him up two flights of stairs and around the corner to the last unit on the back of the building. The door was wide open and the place was trashed.

All three agents immediately drew their guns and entered the apartment. No one was there, but everything was in ruins. The frames and mirrors were all smashed and thrown to the floor. A hole had been smashed into the wall in the bedroom. The baskets she stored DVDs in were dumped out and her jewelry had been spilled.

Spencer called Aaron. "Is Kris with you? Is she okay?"

"She's shaken up, but she'll be fine," Aaron assured him. He was curious though. "Why? What's happened?"

"Her apartment is trashed. It looks like the door was kicked in."

"Have you called a crime scene team to check for prints yet?"

"Morgan is on the phone with them now. I wanted to make sure no one had tried to contact her again," Spencer explained.

"We'll bring her over there with us."

XXX

Spencer was waiting in front of Kris' apartment when she came rushing around the corner, Aaron and Emily right behind her. "How bad is it?" she asked him, breathless from her anxious run.

"Bad," he told her. "You need to try to stay calm and see if anything is missing."

"Okay," she said, but her eyes told him she was already freaking out. He knew she would put on a brave face in front of his colleagues but she would break down in private, later, probably trying to hide it from him as well. She liked to be honest with him, but she hated to make him worry.

Spencer didn't take her hand as they entered, which Emily found odd. If she were Kris, she thought she would have wanted her boyfriend to try to comfort her, to hold her hand or pull her close. Spencer and Kris walked next to each other, but they didn't touch or even look at each other. They definitely weren't a typical couple.

Kris stood in the middle of her living room to survey the damage. She didn't own too much that meant a lot. She'd moved in a hurry when she was 18 and had left most of her belongings behind in Georgia. She was heartbroken to see that the few things she had kept with her over the years seemed to be destroyed. The picture of her and her sister together at Christmas when Kris was sixteen had been pulled off the wall. The frame was shattered and the picture had been shredded. The coffee table book her brother had made of pictures of Kris and her niece was ripped to pieces and scattered across the room. The keepsake box her dad had given her for her birthday one year looked like it had been thrown against a wall and shattered.

"Some of my trinkets are gone," she said finally. "They were in the box over there. It was mostly small toys and jewelry from when I was a kid."

"Is anything else gone?" Spencer asked her.

"Not that I can see." Kris walked down the hall to her bedroom. It wasn't that different from the living room. Her clothes had been tossed out of her closet. Some of them were ripped apart. She noticed the hole in the wall and the pile of ripped up books in the corner. Her bathroom vanity was cleared off, the bottles of perfume and make up broken in the floor. She surveyed the damage to her jewelry and realized that her bracelet was missing. "Wait. Has anyone seen a bracelet? It's white gold with emeralds."

No one had found it. "Does it have some sort of significance?" Derek asked her. It seemed weird that someone would break in and take trinkets with no monetary value and one bracelet with emeralds but leave the TV, sound system, and gold and diamond jewelry.

"It was my mom's," she whispered so softly that the others could barely hear her. She turned away and started to walk out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Spencer asked.

"I need some air," she told him. Her face was white, like she might be sick. Spencer followed her outside. She disappeared around the corner and he found her in the parking lot with her arms wrapped around herself protectively.

"What happened?" he wanted to know. She'd seemed fine until she realized the bracelet was missing.

"I'm sorry." She seemed a little calmer already and he had to wonder if it had something to do with his bipolar theory. "I just felt like I couldn't breathe anymore. Spencer, how does someone know so much about me? I have a huge TV and a ridiculous sound system in there. He could have taken the two karat diamond necklace that was hanging from the jewelry stand on my bathroom counter. He didn't. He took my childhood treasures and the only thing of my mom's that I've ever owned. You said the letters weren't personal. Well, it's personal now."

**A/N: Sorry that this chapter is sort of basic and whatever. I'm having an issue with writer's block today. It might have something to do with the large amount of cold medicine I took a few hours ago. Hopefully tomorrow I can update with chapter five and make up for my lack of creativity today. **


	5. Chapter 5

Aaron took Derek and David with him back to the BAU building to see what progress JJ and Penelope had made. Spencer and Emily stayed with Kris until the criminalists finished checking for evidence and then offered to help her clean up. Kris worked on going through her clothes, almost all of which were ruined. Emily was looking for any DVDs or trinkets that weren't destroyed in the living room. Spencer tried to clean up the spilled make up and perfume from the bathroom.

Everyone had been working for nearly two hours without speaking. Kris heard one of the bathroom drawers close and then silence. Spencer had been moving glass around, so Kris went to make sure he hadn't accidentally sliced his finger or anything. Instead, he sat against the wall with a baggy of pills in his hand. She knew things were about to ugly.

Spencer had been completely honest with Kris about his past addiction to dilaudid. He'd told her things he'd never told anyone before. She'd sworn to him that even though she'd partied a little in high school, she'd left that part of her life in Georgia. She'd lied.

"What is it?" He sounded calmer than Kris had expected. It was almost scarier than if he'd been screaming at her.

"It's E," she told him. She'd never been more ashamed of herself. "Spencer..."

"You lied to me," he interrupted her. "You told me you didn't use anything anymore. You promised."

"I don't use it anymore," she claimed. "I'd forgotten that was even here!" Tears fell down her cheeks. She and Spencer had argued before, but she was afraid they were about to have their first real fight.

"Why do you even have it?" Some anger was starting to creep into his voice, but he was still too calm. Kris could see the wheels in his head turning, probably quoting to himself every conversation they had ever had about drugs.

"I bought it when I worked at the bar; it was before I ever met you. I needed to escape every once in a while and my friend from work—the bouncer I told you about, Matthew—would come over sometimes and we would use it. I'm so sorry, Spencer! You have to believe me! I'm so, so sorry!"

"That's the problem," he said. He stood up and threw the baggy on the counter. "I don't know that I can." He stormed away and Kris followed him.

"Spencer! Where are you going?" she cried as they passed through the living room.

"I can't do this!" he screamed. Emily was trying to not to listen in from the kitchen where she was trying to find any intact dishes, but they were making it hard to ignore them.

"Do what? Please, talk to me!" Kris begged.

"You've been pushing me away for days! I've been so scared that you've been trying to convince yourself to run away! I didn't want to wake up and find that you'd disappeared in the middle of the night again! I have been trying my hardest to be there for you! But I don't know how! Now I find that you've been lying to me for as long as I've known you! What am I supposed to do?" He was crying. She hated herself for making him cry.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to push you away. Please, stay. We can talk. I'll tell you anything."

"I don't know that I can trust you. I need to think." He was eerily calm again. He didn't give her time to respond before walking away.

XXX

"Reid, what are you doing here?" Aaron asked. "I told you to stay and watch Kris."

JJ knew that look instantly, though she hadn't seen it on Spencer since the last time he'd been to Las Vegas to investigate a case involving his parents. Heartbreak. "You and Kris had a fight?" She didn't mention that it looked like he'd been crying.

"Yeah. We did." Spencer took a seat by Derek and didn't say anything else about the fight. "Have we made any progress?"

"Sort of," Penelope told him. She wasn't sure that he should hear what she'd come to tell them. "I got some dirt on our watchful neighbors. Evan Simpson and Joe Wellington both started working at Dominic Jenkins' warehouse ten years ago, though they started six months apart from one another. Three years later, they disappeared. No houses, no phones, no taxes. Zip. Zero. Nada. They have no paper trail."

"People don't just disappear," Derek remarked.

"They do if they're undercover cops," Penelope argued. "A year ago, James Louis and Michael Kerrington—who happen to be the identical twins of Evan and Joe—moved to Orlando, Florida, right next to Kristen Jenkins. Here's the doozey. James and Michael don't just work as police officers. They are both employed by the CIA. I wasn't able to get any information from the CIA systems about the case involving Dominic Jenkins, but I did verify their names on the CIA employee database. From there I saw some interesting crossover. In Tennessee, Kris lived next door to a Mark Harold. In Kentucky, a Cynthia Whitlock had an appointment across from Kris and enrolled in a yoga class with her a month later. In Texas, Kris worked for a night club with Donovan Wallace. And finally, in New York, her apartment was next door to Jackson Davis. What do all of these people have in common, you ask? All of them are co-workers of James and Michael, our friendly neighborhood CIA agents."

"The CIA has been following her for the last four years?" Aaron recapped.

"That's not all," Penelope added. "I found that an anonymous donor has deposited a total of $25,000 into Kris' bank account every month since she turned 18, which by my calculations, would probably make Kris the first millionaire bartender slash barista in history."

XXX

When JJ arrived at Kris' apartment to take Spencer's place, Kris was in her bedroom with the door locked. She could hear sobbing. "Has she been in there this whole time?" JJ asked Emily.

"Pretty much," Emily told her. "She ran to the parking lot after Reid, but I figured he drove away because when she came back in a minute later, she ran to the bedroom, slammed the door, and started sobbing."

"Do you have any idea what the fight was about?" JJ wanted to ask. Spencer hadn't given away anything.

"She lied to him about something," Emily explained. "I have no idea what the rest of it was about. He screamed something about her pushing him away and she kept telling him that he had to trust her and talk to her."

"We have to talk to her now," JJ mentioned. "Turns out she has quite a few skeletons in her closet."

JJ and Emily knocked on the door and Kris answered with tears running down her face. "Kris, are you okay?" JJ asked her. "We heard that you and Reid got into a fight."

"He hates me," Kris whispered. She opened the door all the way to let the other women follow her into the room. Kris sat on the bed and they sat on either side of her.

"No. I'm sure you two can work it out," Emily assured her.

"Listen, I know you're upset right now," JJ started. "But we have some questions for you."

"Like what?" Kris wanted to know.

"Garcia did some research. She found that someone has been depositing $25,000 into your bank account every month. Do you know who?" Emily asked.

"Not officially. I knew about the money. It's probably from my dad. If I had to guess, he's trying to bribe me not to tell anyone about him. People were always watching our family. If it isn't him, then it's my sister for the same reason. She's determined to protect my dad no matter what the cost."

"Did you ever feel like you were being watched after you moved? Other than in Florida?" JJ asked her.

"Sure. But I felt like that since I was a kid. Like I said, people were always watching my family."

"So did you know that the CIA has been following you for the last four years? They've had agents living near you since you moved to Tennessee," Emily announced.

That got Kris' attention. "What?" She wiped at some of the tears on her cheeks. "The CIA is following me?" She definitely hadn't known.

"Can you think of any reason they would want to watch you?" JJ asked.

"My dad. I guess. I don't know otherwise."

JJ and Emily could tell that Kris was too upset to give them the information they needed. They stayed to comfort her for a few minutes, but even that didn't seem to be doing much good, so they left her to her tears.

Kris laid on the bed with silent sobs for nearly an hour. She was so relieved when her phone rang and Spencer's name popped on to the caller ID. "I'm so sorry, Spencer!"

"I just have one question for you," he stated with the same eerie calm from earlier. "Did you know about the money?"

"Yes. I knew it was there. But..."

It was too late to explain. Spencer hung up on her. Kris threw the phone against the wall and her sobs started back up. She hated herself. She was in love with Spencer; she had never meant to hurt him.

XXX

Another hour or so passed and Kris heard people talking in the living room. She got hopeful and went to see if Spencer had come back. He hadn't. Penelope was talking to JJ and Emily in hushed whispers.

"No offense, but I really don't think I can answer any more questions right now," Kris announced before anyone even noticed her watching. She was still sobbing.

"I'm not here to ask you questions," Penelope assured her. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay." She walked to the bedroom and ushered Kris back inside.

Kris walked to the bed and sat down wiping at some of her tears. "He hates me. He should hate me. But I can't loose him," Kris cried.

"Well, for what it's worth, I don't think you will loose him," Penelope told her.

"Why are you being so nice?" Kris asked. Then she realized how mean her question had sounded. " Sorry. That was really rude of me. You're the only person I have that's being nice to me and I'm berating you for it."

"I just thought you might need a friend right about now," Penelope told her. "From the looks of it, I was right." She felt sorry for Kris. She was surrounded by profilers, having them comb through her life like she was a criminal. Penelope had been in that situation and she knew how lonely it could feel.

"You aren't mad at me like everyone else seems to be?"

"I've always believed that everything happens for a reason. Besides, we're all human. We make mistakes every once in a while. I don't think that one mistake should be means to condemn someone," she said with a smile. She thought Kris could use a reassuring smile. She looked heartbroken.

"I'm glad that Spencer has you as a friend," Kris commented out of nowhere. "He trusts you a lot. He trusted me until today..."

"What did you two fight about? If it's not too personal. I know it can be sort of invasive having the team digging into your life."

"I lied to him. He found a few tabs of E in my bathroom. I got it so long ago that I honestly forgot it was even in there. I was having a fling with one of the guys I worked with when I first moved to town. He'd told me the E would take things to the next level," Kris recalled. "I didn't even like it all that much. I felt out of control when I was on it."

"Was the fling serious?" Penelope had a sneaking suspicion that the fight was more about the fling than the E.

"No. But Spencer knew that already. It's the drugs he's mad about. I told him that I hadn't done anything like that since high school. I lied. I never lie to him. He really _should_ hate me."

"I'm not saying it was a smart choice, but it was one small lie. Give him some time to cool off," Penelope advised. She'd known Spencer for a long time and he wasn't the type to hold a grudge. Heck, her beloved Derek was always getting under Spencer's skin.

"You don't understand," Kris argued. "Honesty is everything in our relationship. I've never had someone in my life before that I can tell anything to. He was the first person I told about my dad. Ever. My family never spoke about it. And in return, he told me everything about himself too. I know about his mom, his dad, Tobias Hankel, his old crushes, his short lived fling with Lila Archer, everything."

"Then if you don't mind my asking, why did you lie?"

"It's stupid. But I wanted to protect him. He's always protecting me. And not just from other people. He protects me from myself. I wanted to protect him for once. I knew he had issues with drug use, so I lied to protect him. It was a mistake."

"I really do think it will all be okay in a few days," Penelope assured her.

"I really messed up. The rest of you team hates me. I still don't entirely get why you don't, though I'm glad for it." Kris was calming down some. Her tears had almost stopped.

"They don't hate you. They're just worried about Reid."

"You aren't?"

"Oh, I'm always worried about Reid," she chuckled. "But I don't think like a profiler. All I can go on is my instincts. I saw you two last night. You make him happy—happier than I've seen him in a long time. I really do think that you two will work things out. And everyone else will come around as soon as you do."

At that moment, Kris' stomach flipped and she ran to the bathroom, hoping she wouldn't find any leftover shards of glass. She crouched in front of the toilet. Penelope, the nurturing person she was, wanted to do something to help, but she wasn't sure what. "Are you okay?" she asked as Kris made her way back into the room. Penelope helped her to lie down on the bed.

"I'm fine," Kris said quickly. It wasn't technically a lie, but wasn't exactly true either.

"That didn't look fine," Penelope argued. Kris was holding her stomach like she was hurting.

"It's okay, really."

"How long has this been going on?" Penelope asked. "Reid didn't say anything about you being sick." But Kris didn't seem to be surprised by the upset stomach.

"That's because he doesn't know."

"Do you have the stomach flu or something?"

"No. It isn't that kind of sick."

Realization finally hit. "It's the morning kind, isn't it?" Penelope realized she wasn't holding her stomach in pain; she was protecting it.

Kris hadn't expected anyone to find out so quickly. It had taken her three weeks to put the clues together. She couldn't even figure out exactly _when _it could have happened. They were always careful. "Please, you can't say anything to Spencer." Her plea was soft, but desperate.

"No. I would never tell him. But you should. He deserves to know."

"I know. I am going to tell him. I only found out a few days ago. I had made plans to cook him a romantic dinner this weekend and I was going to tell him then. But now I don't know if he'll even be speaking to me this weekend."

It relieved Penelope to know Kris wasn't trying to hide the baby from Spencer, that she just hadn't had a chance to talk to him yet. "You should still tell him. Make him listen."

"I need things to be okay between us first. I don't want him to forgive me just because of this. I want to know it's real."

Penelope decided that Kris would tell him when she was ready. Instead, she tried to get information about the baby and make sure that Kris was okay. "How far along are you?"

"I don't know. I took the test three days ago. But I only realized because I was late, so at least a month I guess."

"Is the morning sickness bad?"

"Not really. It only happens every few days, mostly when I'm at work. Probably the smell."

"Are you scared?" She looked terrified.

"Of course I am. My mom left when I was only two months old. Spencer's dad bailed when he was a kid. Neither of us had a very stable family growing up. How can we be good parents when neither of us had good role models? What if he doesn't even want to be a dad? He worries so much about his mom's condition being genetic—more than he likes to admit. He'll worry about passing it to his kids."

"He'll be a great dad. He's so fantastic as a god father. I think Henry has been really good for Reid. Your baby will be too."

Penelope's phone started ringing. It was Spencer. "Reid, hey." She normally would have had some witty quip to answer with, but with the news she'd just heard about Spencer, she couldn't think straight. Kris perked up when she realized who was calling. Just hearing his name gave her hope. "Okay, I'll be right there." She turned to Kris as soon as she hung up. "They just got some cooperation from organized crime. So I've been summoned. Sorry."

It was a mental slap to the face. Deflated, Kris went back to sulking. "Thank you for coming to check on me, Penelope."

"No problem. And as soon as this is over, you and me are having a killer girl day."

**A/N: I Know this chapter was very Kris-centric. There is a lot about Reid coming up, but I had to break it up because together, the story was getting too long for one chapter. Just bare with me and I promise this will get better :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Spencer wanted to go back to Kris' apartment. He wanted to let her explain the lie away. He wanted to move on. But he couldn't do it.

Kris had never lied to him before. At least, she'd never been caught in a lie. But Derek's concerns from the night before seemed more and more relevant as the day went on. What if it really was some sort of elaborate plot? What if she had targeted him because he was an FBI agent? He didn't have any proof that she hadn't been in touch with her father the whole time she'd known him. She'd told him she had to work two jobs because she didn't make enough to pay her rent, but she was getting $25000 each month from a mystery donor. He didn't know exactly how much she paid in rent, but he'd seen her neighborhood and knew she wasn't paying $25,000 in rent each month. So what was the money going towards? She was being followed by the CIA. They wouldn't put so much money and effort keeping eyes on someone innocent. Had their whole relationship been some sort of ruse?

No. He couldn't believe that. Their relationship was the real deal. He knew that much was true...

"Reid! Are you even listening?" Derek's laugh brought him back from his thoughts.

"Sorry," he apologized when he noticed Aaron, David, and Derek all staring at him.

"I don't think you should work this anymore," Aaron sighed. "You're too close to it and it's starting to cloud your judgment." Aaron never thought he'd have to say that to Spencer.

"No. Hotch, I know more about this case than anyone else," Spencer argued.

"And that's why I've kept you involved as long as I have. But you're too distracted by your emotions right now."

"I need to do this. Hotch, I need to make sure she's safe." Spencer couldn't help his need to protect Kris, no matter how mad he was at her.

"Go home. Talk to her. Do what you need to do to work out whatever happened this morning. We'll talk tomorrow," Aaron compromised.

XXX

Spencer wasn't happy about being kicked off the case. Sometimes he felt like Aaron treated him like a child. But he knew that this time, Aaron was right; he needed to get his head on straight about his fight with Kris.

He went home to think about what he wanted to do. He was playing his 8th consecutive solo game of chess when he decided to call her. The call went straight to voice mail. He tried Emily's phone.

"Prentiss," she answered.

"Is Kris still with you?"

"No. Rossi took her to a hotel for the night. Hotch asked me to check in with an old CIA friend of mine to see if I can find out why they've been following Kris and if they might know who's been watching her."

"A hotel?" Why was she at a hotel? Had something happened?

"She spoke with her apartment manager—who is a piece of work, by the way—but it may be a day or two before her door gets replaced. They tried to fix the lock, but whoever kicked the door in did some serious damage."

"Is she okay?" He was afraid to ask, but he needed to know.

"She's upset about the fight. Garcia seemed to calm her down, but she's still hurting," Emily told him honestly. "If you're still upset, you may want to wait on calling her. JJ and I could hardly talk to her about the stalking earlier. We need her to stay calm in case we need to ask her anymore questions."

"No. That's not why I'm calling. Thanks." Spencer hung up before Emily could talk him out of calling Kris.

He called Rossi's phone. "SSA Rossi," he said, all business.

"It's Spencer. Is Kris with you?"

"She's in the other room changing," he told him. "Do you want to speak to her?" David sounded hopeful.

"Yeah, I do. Thanks."

A second later Kris' apprehensive voice rang though the speaker. "Spencer? Are you okay?"

He wasn't sure, so he didn't answer that. "I called your phone, but it's turned off."

"It broke, actually." She sounded embarrassed. It wasn't what Spencer had expected her to sound like and he wanted to know what was making her feel that way. But they had more important things to discuss. "I'm so sorry, Spencer. I never meant to hurt you. You need to know that I didn't want to hurt you."

"I do. It still hurts though." He wasn't trying to make her feel bad, but he still wanted to be honest with her.

"I know." She sounded defeated.

"Why did you lie about the money?" he wanted to know. Her answer could change everything in their relationship.

"I didn't lie about it," she claimed.

"You worked two jobs to pay rent. Why would you do that? You have all of that money?" he asked, changing tactics. Technically, he'd never asked her about the money, so she hadn't lied about it. It was more like a lie by omission.

"I do have the money. I have every cent. Because I won't spend it. I always knew it was a bribe to keep my mouth shut about my dad. It's tainted. Giving it back wouldn't do any good—no one would admit to giving it to me if I asked them. So I just let it sit there, collecting interest. I figure, one of these days, I'll use it to go to college maybe. I'll find a productive use for it. But I was working to pay my rent. I won't let my dad support me," she explained.

"Where are you staying?" Spencer asked. "I want to see you." Kris told him the hotel and her room number and they hung up, both of them feeling a little bit better. Spencer hadn't completely forgiven her, but he at least wanted to talk to her in person.

Spencer went to the bedroom to grab his jacket from the closet. When he came back into the living room, something struck him and threw him onto his back. It was a fist. Someone stood over him in a mask. It was a man, at least six feet tall. Spencer tried to notice as much detail as possible about the man as quickly as he could.

"You were supposed to be the girl!" he exclaimed, but the mask distorted his voice. Spencer wouldn't be able to recognize it later if he needed to.

Spencer reached for his gun, but realized he had taken it off in his bedroom earlier. He looked for anything he could use as a weapon, but Kris was a neat freak, so the floors were empty. He was left to his own wit, which meant he needed to talk his way out of the situation.

"What do you want with Kris?" he asked. He hoped to stall for time. The man didn't answer. He bent down and hit Spencer in the head with something hard and knocked him unconscious.


	7. Chapter 7

Kris tried to watch TV in her hotel room while she waited on Spencer to arrive at the suite so they could talk. Being away from him—knowing he was still mad at her—physically hurt. She flipped to one of her favorite crime shows, but it just made her miss him more. She was always watching the show in bed at night when Spencer finished watching the news and he was always correcting the mistakes the show made. She could almost hear him chuckling softly beside her, whispering about how "it's highly improbable that they would find that hair under the couch. It's even less likely that it would belong to the killer instead of a family member." Of course, Spencer would have all of the statistics that went along with the statement, like the actual probability of the hair belonging to the killer versus the family, but her imagination wasn't developed enough to even pretend to know those answers. It made her heart miss him that much more. Some girls would hate a boyfriend who was _always_ right; Kris liked that it just meant fewer fights. What was the point in arguing when he was inevitably going to win anyway?

She flipped to another channel, but again, it made her miss Spencer. A few minutes later, she gave up all together and turned the TV off. She stood up and walked to the balcony to watch the city. Her life was at a stand-still, but the rest of the world was as busy as ever. She couldn't help but think about how similar the view from the hotel balcony was to the view from the balcony at Spencer's condo, even though Spencer lived on the border of Virginia and the hotel was well inside the DC area.

Kris lost track of time and was startled out of her thoughts when the sliding door opened behind her. She gasped as she turned and saw Penelope watching her. "Sorry. I was hoping you were Spencer," she explained.

"I know. I heard he was coming to see you," Penelope informed her. There was something she wasn't saying though. Kris wasn't sure what had happened, but the look on Penelope's face made her heart constrict in fear. Had Spencer changed his mind? Had he learned something else that made him really hate her? "You should come inside. The team is all coming to talk to you."

"Is Spencer okay?" Kris needed to know if he was one of the team members coming or if he'd given up on her.

"He's...he'll be here." Penelope turned to head back inside without looking at Kris' face. She knew Kris was upset and couldn't stand not telling her what had happened at Spencer's apartment.

Inside, JJ and Penelope shared the sofa in the main room of the two bedroom suite. David was in the corner of the room whispering on his cell phone. Kris sat across from the girls in a single chair and watched. She wasn't a profiler, but she knew something had happened. The tension in the air said all she needed to know.

"Did something happen to Spencer?" she asked meekly.

JJ and Penelope looked at each other, confirming Kris' fears. Neither of them said anything. Kris didn't see David walk up beside her until he answered her question. "Reid's okay," he assured her. "There's been an escalation with the stalker. That was Reid on the phone; he wants us to wait until he gets here to talk to you."

A knock on the door cut Kris off before she could protest. David walked to the door cautiously and Kris noticed his hand twitching towards the gun in his belt a few times. When he looked through the peep hole he released a small sigh and opened the door. It was Aaron and Emily. They came in and spoke in hushed whispers with David by the door, too far away for Kris to listen in. JJ and Penelope smiled fake smiles at her, which did nothing to reassure her as she was sure they were meant to.

After a few eternally long minutes of whispers and smiles, another knock came and when they answered the door, Spencer strolled in. There was a red splotch on his pale cheek and a small white bandage on his left temple. Kris forgot all about their fight and ran to him as fast as her unsteady legs would carry her. "Stat! What happened to you!" Her question was breathless, worried. There was no faking the concern in her voice.

"Someone was at the apartment," he told her carefully. He knew she'd been through an emotional roller coaster the last few days and he didn't want to give her more than she could handle. He didn't know what the news he had would do to her.

Kris ran her thumb lightly over the red spot on his cheek and her eyes started watering. She and Spencer weren't usually too touchy-feely, but she reached out to him anyway, reaching behind his neck and holding on tight. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for you to get dragged into my family drama."

Spencer shook his head and stared at his girlfriend like he was trying to study her. He'd looked at her that way plenty of times just after they'd dating—he'd never met someone like her before—but he hadn't done it in months and it worried her. "This isn't your fault," he said finally. "I'm just glad you weren't there, that they didn't have a chance to hurt you." He was silent for a minute and then Kris looked down at the paper in his hand. Before she could ask him what it was, he said, "We need to talk in private."

The fight came rushing back to Kris and she started shaking as she and Spencer walked to the bedroom and closed the door. Would he break up with her? She wasn't sure that if she'd been in his place, she wouldn't break up with him. No one deserved to be pulled into her family and their disfunction. She hated herself for putting him through this ordeal.

Spencer sat at the head of the bed, propping himself up on the headboard. Kris sat at the foot of the bed so that she could give him his space, but he reached for her hand and pulled her so that she was sitting only a foot from him; he never did drop her hand.

"I'm so sorry that I lied to you," Kris whispered, breaking the silence between them.

"I know. I'm not mad anymore." He didn't look mad; he looked worried.

Kris wasn't sure how to phrase her next question. "Not that I'm not glad, but what changed your mind?" She just had to be sure he was forgiving her for the right reasons.

"Garcia came to check on me before she came here. She can be very convincing. She reminded me of what I was going to loose if I let one fight ruin everything we've got together. And she told me what you said about trying to protect me. I love that you think you need to protect me, and I get that you did it because you care about me, but you don't need to lie to keep me from getting my feelings hurt."

"I know. It was stupid."

"It doesn't matter anymore. For now, we need to figure out who's stalking you so that _I_ can protect _you _this time."

"What happened at your apartment?" Kris asked him, almost afraid to find out.

"I was getting ready to come here to see you. A guy in a mask jumped out and knocked me to the ground. He was looking for you."

"So what do we do now?" she asked him, unsure of how a creepy feeling in her stomach had turned into something so huge in a matter of days.

"I saw him. A sketch artist came and I think you need to see him."

There was a catch in his voice, something he was holding back. She didn't ask him what it was. She didn't think that after the fight they had just made up from, she deserved to ask him.

"It wasn't my dad. Or anyone working with him, probably," she said instead. "I can't imagine that they would have left witnesses."

Spencer didn't respond, didn't know how. He wordlessly handed Kris the paper, the sketch of her stalker. She took it in a shaking hand and set it on her lap. One hand went to her necklace; the other traced the outline of the face staring up at her from the page. Spencer saw the recognition hit her face, just as it had him a few hours earlier.

"He has my eyes." Her voice was calm, methodical. Her eyes were full of fear and surprise. "Why does a stranger have my eyes?"

"A stranger? It isn't your brother?" Spencer had been so sure. The stalker looked so much like her: her eyes, her nose, her lips. How could they not be related?

"No My brother looks like my dad. My sister always said that she and I look like our mom." Kris' hand went to her stomach when she spoke about her parents. Spencer noticed.

"That's the fourth time you've held your stomach since I got here. Are you okay?"

It was the moment of truth. She could tell him about the baby. But she wasn't sure that he could handle it yet. She wasn't sure that she could either.

Before she said anything, JJ knocked and stuck her head in the room. "Derek's here and everyone is caught up. We're ready in here."

Spencer took Kris' hand and walked to the main room with her. Garcia had her laptops set up on the coffee table and everyone stood around her. Kris and Spencer took a seat together in a chair to wait.

"Is there some reason your brother would be behind this without your father's orders?" Aaron asked her. She'd learned quickly in the last few days that he was very direct with his questioning.

"It's not my brother," she informed the group. "I've never seen that man before in my life." There was a moment of silence while everyone processed her statement. "I don't know who he is or what he wants with me. And I definitely have no idea how he has my eyes. But I do know that _that_ is not my brother."

Kris got up and walked back to the balcony. Spencer knew he needed to give her a few minutes to calm down. She was trying to keep the fear out of her face while his team was there, but she was freaking out on the inside. He spoke with his team, tossing ideas back and forth for a while. They went through every theory they could think of and finally decided to look into her absent mother and the possibility that her father had an illegitimate child with someone else.

Spencer went to tell Kris about their theories and see if she had any ideas, but when he went to the balcony, it was totally empty.


End file.
